News
T he newly inaugurated Obama administration on Jan. 20 halted all regulations that had not taken effect by that date, a move that could delay several Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration regula-tions issued in recent months. Mean-while, FMCSA took the final action on the last full working day before Presi-dent Obama's inauguration to ensure that the new administration would not be able to undo the final regula-tions governing truck drivers' hours of service. In a Jan. 16 letter to several organi-zations, FMCSA stood by its decisions to retain the 34-hour restart and 11 hours of driving, saying there had been ample scientific evidence backing the safety of the regulations. Public Citi-zen, Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, the Teamsters Union and the Truck Safety Coalition on Dec. 18 had filed a petition for reconsideration. Those groups now have 60 days after the Jan. 16 denial to file for a review of the decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which twice has struck down the Bush administration's hours-of-ser-vice rules on various grounds. The Obama administration also could initiate its own reconsideration of the hours rules, but it would have to start over from the beginning with a notice of proposed rulemaking. The Bush administration's Nov. 19 publication of the hours rules came in just under the wire to avoid the moratorium on rules the Obama administration declared last month and possible congressional action to negate them. Though the moratorium affects all rulemakings at least temporarily, the targets are major rules that are politi-cally controversial. It's not clear that any of the three regulations FMCSA issued in December would be targeted. In fact, departments and agencies have the authority to let some regulations NEWS Safe Zone Hours-of-service rule protected for now Amid all the economic gloom and doom, one bright spot for the trucking indus-try is record low driver turnover 65 percent for large truckload fleets and 58 percent for small truckload fleets, said American Trucking Associations Chief Economist Bob Costello at the NATSO Show 2009 in Nashville. When the economy begins to turn next year, Costello said it will be good for the survivors. Truck capacity will tighten fairly quickly once a recovery com-mences, but until then it will be difficult for fleets, Costello said. Otherwise, economists painted a bleak picture for this year. While forecasting an end of recession by year-end, Wachovia Managing Director and Senior Economist Mark Vitner said, the end of a recession is not a very good time. It means things are not getting any worse things have just stopped falling. Costello echoed those sentiments. Unfortunately, we are dealing with very bad freight volumes, he said. We just reported horrible tonnage numbers for the month of December. December freight numbers were down 11 percent, which is the third worst percentage all time and the worst for a single month without the influences of a labor strike. Since its peak in 2006, for-hire freight volumes have fallen 16.2 per-cent, and Costello said it's not over. June through December for-hire loads show decreases in all trucking sectors, with tanker and flatbed sectors taking the Bright Spot: Driver Turnover Down 12 TRUCKERS NEWS MARCH 2009 continued on page 86 continued on page 86